William Shakespeare His poetry, world, and life

1. William Shakespeare His poetry, world, and life

2. “Shakespeare’s genius had to do not really with facts, but with ambition, intrigue, love, suffering - things that aren’t taught in school” (Bryson 109).

3. From Hamlet… • “…the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, themirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure” (III.ii.21-25).

4. Shakespeare’s Effect on the English Language • 12,000 words entered the language between 1500 and 1650 (about ½ of them still in use today) • Shakespeare coined 2,035 words (Hamlet alone has 600 new words). A small sampling: • Bloody, hurry, generous, impartial, obsene, magestic, road, critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, excellent, eventful, assassination, lonely, suspicious, indistinguishable, well-read, zany, countless

5. Language • Shakespeare’s phrases are now our clichés: • One fell swoop, into thin air, fast and loose, in a pickle, budge an inch, cold comfort, flesh and blood, foul play, tower of strength, cruel to be kind, bated breath, pomp and circumstance, catch a cold, heart of gold, live long day, method in his madness, strange bedfellows, too much of a good thing, foregone conclusion

6. Shakespeare’s Writing Style • Averaging out all of Shakespeare’s plays, they were made up of about 70% blank verse, 5% rhymed verse, and 25% prose. • Blank Verse = unrhymed iambic pentameter • Rhymed Verse = couplets of iambic pentameter • Prose = NO POETIC STRUCTURE

7. Shakespeare’s Writing Style Poetry vs. Prose • Prose - Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure • Hamlet displaying madness • Hamlet talking to the Players • Hamlet’s letter to Horatio • Prose used for several reasons: • To demonstrate a familiar relationship (often for relaxed or informal conversation) • To signify a character’s status • When the rational is contrasted with the emotional • The character of Hamlet tends to use prose both when he is being very rational and when he is very irrational (but the passionate Hamlet speaks in verse)

8. Iambic Pentameter The poetic form used by Shakespeare is Iambic Pentameter Iambic Pentameter is a rhythmical pattern of syllables • Iambic: rhythm goes from unstressed syllable to a stressed one. Rhythmic examples: “divine” “caress” “bizarre” Like a heartbeat: daDUM daDUM Each iamb is called a foot • There are other rhythms. I.e., trochaic = DUMda • Pentameter = the rhythm is repeated 5 times – each line is 10 syllables: daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM

9. Iambic Pentameter Pentameter = the rhythm is repeated 5 times daDUMdaDUMdaDUMdaDUMdaDUM The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o’er-leap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires. • Shakespeare will sometimes end iambic pentameter on an unstressed syllable, so that the last foot sounds like this: daDUMda. • To be, or not to be, that is the question. • Is this a dagger which I see before me Macbeth:

10. Rhyming Verse • Rhyming couplets often at the end of monologues/scenes. • A cue to the actors backstage • Some scenes in Shakespeare’s plays (typically comedies) will be entirely in couplets. • Banter, to lighten the tone, to show a character’s wit, to quicken the pace of a scene

11. Elizabethan Age – Jacobean Age • Shakespeare gains his notoriety during a time when theatre is flourishing – the Elizabethan Age. • Named after Queen Elizabeth I, who reigns until 1603. • King James I reigns during the rest of Shakespeare’s life.

12. Elizabethan Age – Jacobean Age • Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) – Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Protestant. The Virgin Queen. • Takes throne from Mary I (aka Bloody Mary), a Catholic who executed Protestants in large numbers. • Elizabeth I firmly establishes the Church of England (begun by her father) • England emerges as the leading naval and commercial power of the Western world. Elizabeth I's England consolidates its position with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. • Elizabeth names James VI of Scotland to be the heir to the throne. • Takes the crown as James I, and rules from 1603-1625. The Jacobean Age.

13. Elizabethan Theatres • Flowering of theatre. The Renaissance (rebirth) grew from England’s medieval theatre of mystery and morality plays with some stylistic infusion from educate men’s common reading of the Roman playwrights (Terence, Plautus, Seneca). • City authorities would often ban theatrical productions… gatherings encouraged crime. • Theatres: The Theatre and The Curtain in North London; The Rose, the Swan, and The Globe (1599) in South London. • Christopher Marlow (1564-1593) – Tamburlane the Great, Faustus, Edward II • Ben Jonson (1572-1637) – Volpone, The Fox • Shakespeare (1564-1616)

14. Elizabethan Theatres • Wooden, circular structure, open to the sun • The pit (groundlings) vs. the galleries • Audience close to the actors • Women not allowed on stage (teenage boys) • No scenery, few props, but elaborate costumes

15. The Globe Theatre

16. Origins of Theatrical Career • It is not clear how his career in the theatre began; but from about 1594 onward he was an important member of the company of players known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men (called the King's Men after the accession of James I in 1603). They had the best actor, Richard Burbage; they had the best theatre, the Globe; they had the best dramatist, Shakespeare.

17. Stratford to London

18. Theatre in Shakespeare’s Time • The Lord Chamberlain’s Men and The Globe Theatre • Sharers (6-10) – owners, best actors/directors/ writers (Richard Burbage, Hemming & Condell, Will Kemp, Shakespeare) • Journeymen (10-15) – adult men • Apprentices (3) young boys • Average play • 10 performances • 200 a year • 2 weeks to prepare • Types of performance: Public, Court & Provinces

19. Shakespeare’s Plays 37 plays • Comedies • Tragedies • Histories • Romances • “In comedy, the parade of human folly is presented through the wrong end of the binoculars from a perspective of detached amusement. But with tragedy, the binoculars are turned the other way: everything is up close, intense, and immediate” (Epstein 303).

20. Tragedies: • Solitary men struggling with human existence • We feel for the characters, learn through their mistakes • What is the title character’s tragedy? • What & when is the catharsis? • The violence of tragedy: this strange beauty is given to the most horrific suffering.

21. Comedies: • Make light of our faults, bring joy • Examine the madness and delusions of love even as they celebrate its enchantment • Each comedy teaches us something different about love

22. Histories: • Help us view who we once were • Celebrate Tudor line; examines the question of dynamic succession

23. Romances (aka Problem Plays, Tragicomedies): • Theatrical illusion and its relation to life; appearance & reality • The capacity of art to transform terror into beauty • And the power of love to heal

24. Chronology of Plays 1589-92 Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI, Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3 1592-93 Richard III, The Comedy of Errors 1593-94 Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew 1594-95 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet 1595-96 Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream 1596-97 King John, The Merchant of Venice 1597-98 Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2 1598-99 Much Ado About Nothing c. 1599 Henry V 1599-1600Julius Caesar, As You Like It 1600-01Hamlet, The Merry Wives of Windsor 1601-02Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida 1602-03 All's Well That Ends Well 1604-05 Measure For Measure, Othello 1605-06 King Lear, Macbeth 1606-07 Antony and Cleopatra 1607-08 Coriolanus, Timon of Athens 1608-09 Pericles 1609-10 Cymbeline 1610-11 The Winter's Tale c. 1611The Tempest 1612-13 Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen

25. The Four Humours • A traditional theory of physiology in which the state of health - and by extension the state of mind, or character - depended upon a balance among the four elemental fluids: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, and black bile. • These were closely allied with the four elements (air, fire, water, and earth). Their correspondence is described as follows…

26. The Humours • PHLEGMATIC: Phlegm • Cold and moist; (Water ) • Dull, pale, cowardly • CHOLERIC: Yellow Bile • Hot and dry; (Fire) • Violent, vengeful • SANGUINE: Blood • Hot and moist; (Air) • Amorous, happy, generous • MELANCHOLIC: Black Bile • Cold and dry ; (Earth) • Gluttonous, lazy, sentimental

27. The Humours • The "humours" gave off vapors which ascended to the brain; an individual's personal characteristics (physical, mental, moral) were explained by his or her "temperament," or the state of that person's "humours." • The perfect temperament resulted when no one of these humours dominated. • By 1600 it was common to use "humour" as a means of classifying characters; knowledge of the humours is not only important to understanding later medieval work, but essential to interpreting Elizabethan drama.